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Tuesday, October 4, 2011

80's Superhero Toy Lines, and Some Commercials

I am a fan of 80s toy lines. I love He-man, and am intrigued by Transformers and GI joe, but there are two other lines that epitomize the 80s for me. Secret Wars, and Super powers were Competing lines of Marvel and DC super heroes respectively. Both were about in the same scale (about 4 inches) but they were both different.

The Super Powers line, by Kenner, was made up of DC Super heroes, and made a huge deal out of action features. You press the figures legs together you activate punching arms or a grab or some other feature. This was the main piece of the line, and I have to say it was fun as a kid. I got a lot of play out of the Super Powers figures I had. which as I recall were only SuperMan, Batman, and Robin. But those three saw a lot of play.

DC Super Powers line toy commercials.

Alternately there was Marvel’s line, the Secret Wars was produced by Mattel. They were simpler figures. . . Much simpler figures. They had two fewer points of articulation, and no action features (which is strange because of the emphasis Mattel had put on action features in other lines). The figures were made out of an almost PVC materiel and had an almost rubbery bend in them. Each of the figures came with an accessory, a Shield, a Secret shield to be exact. The shields would open and a small lenticular insert could be inserted within the shield to show moving scenes. As a kid I only had spider man from this line, but that spiderman got a lot of play. I still rank this as one of the best toy lines in the 80s regardless of it’s simplicity!

Since the 80’s I have acquired more of each of these lines, and hope to do some line reviews of these in the near future. For now though, Watch these spectacular Toy commercials for the lines! They scream adventure to me :)